This Week in Literary News: Week of January 31

Lots of great stuff from all around the book world this week. Let’s get right to it!

Georgia College & State University is hosting a virtual African Writers Festival this month, featuring some amazing writers including Mona Eltahawy, Maaza Mengiste, and Novuyo Tshuma, among many, many more.

Black history is often reduced to moments, and those moments can become myths. As great as it is that we celebrate Black History Month, we need to be careful that the myths and moments don’t flatten, particularly with the Civil Rights Movement, what is often long, intentional, hard work that can’t be reduced to a single moment. At the New York Times, author Jeanne Theoharis, reflects on what this flattening has done to the work of Rosa Parks. “‘Over the years, I have been rebelling against second-class citizenship. It didn’t begin when I was arrested,’ Mrs. Parks reminded interviewers time and again.”

The National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences in South Africa has released the longlist for their 2021 awards (PDF), and we’re pleased to see so many names we know and love! Barbara Boswell, author of Unmaking Grace, has been nominated for her non-fiction work, And Wrote My Story Anyway: Black South African Women’s Novels as Feminism (Wits University Press), and the fiction anthology Joburg Noir (Jacana Media), which features contributions by two Catalyst authors— Sifiso Mzobe (Young Blood) and Yewande Omotoso (Bom Boy). Congratulations, all!

“My training gave me the insights into what questions to ask, and the aspects of human behavior I wanted the protagonist to explore, but it didn’t make it harder or easier to actually write. In front of the keyboard, I was merely a storyteller, armed with selective information that I was using to drive my point.” Great conversation at LA Review of Books: Oyinkan Braithwaite, author of My Sister the Serial Killer, interviews Femi Kayode author of Lightseekers.

In Catalyst news, Joanne Hichens, author of the new release Divine Justice, talked with Michael Sears at The Big Thrill Magazine about her new book, how real-life politics played a role in its creation, and why she’s drawn to “the darker side of life.” You can read more about how Joanne was influenced by all-too-real events in this great essay at CrimeReads.

Maybe you like to have some music on while you read? Check out this list at OkayAfrica of “10 South African Artists & Labels to Support on Bandcamp” And if you’re still in a musical mood, check out this article by Gwen Ansell on singer and activist Sibongile Khumalo.

“It’s boys who do all the fun stuff and sometimes a girl like me gets a little left out, but girls can be scientists and go to the moon.” Ugandan tv show N*Gen, a show for kids 8-12 that “looks at science through an African lens” is coming to the US. The show also features a number of women scientists with the hope of empowering more girls to pursue the sciences.

Black History Month is a fantastic time to read and celebrate Black authors, but why stop at February? CrimeReads has a list of 25+ New Releases from Black Authors to Keep You Reading All Year Long. This fantastic list includes Young Blood by Sifiso Mzobe, which is coming this April. The Schomburg Center has put together a Black Liberation Reading List that features books for readers all ages. JSTOR Daily has put together a companion tool for the list that provides “unrestricted access to closely-related articles, book chapters, and other content” for each of the 95 books on the list. And CLMP has put together a reading list of books by small presses (including this one!) of books to read during Black History Month.